Mikalai Statkevich — 70 years old

Today marks the 70th birthday of Belarusian politician and former political prisoner Mikalai Statkevich.

Mikalai Viktaravich was born on August 12, 1956, in the village of Lyadna, Slutsk district. He graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (today, the Military Academy is based there), and served four years in the Murmansk region.

In 1991, he founded the Belarusian Military Association, and in 1995, he headed the Belarusian Social Democratic Party (Narodnaya Hramada).

Statkevich was imprisoned three times. The first time was in 2004, when he received three years for organizing a street protest in Minsk against the official results of the parliamentary elections and referendum.

Then in 2010, after the presidential elections. The ex-presidential candidate participated in a rally on Independence Square against the results of the presidential elections. He was detained on December 19, 2010, like a number of other candidates, shortly after the dispersal of the rally. He was sentenced to six years in a reinforced security penal colony.

He was released in August 2015, a year earlier, under Lukashenka's amnesty.

He was arrested for the third time on May 31, 2020, while on his way to Tsikhanouskaya's picket at Kamarouka in Minsk. A year and a half later, he was sentenced to 14 years of imprisonment in a special regime colony. He served his term in the Hlybokaye penal colony.

On September 11, 2025, he was taken out of prison along with 52 other political prisoners but refused to leave Belarus, remained in the neutral zone, and was detained a few hours later and returned to the colony. On February 19, 2026, he was released home to Minsk.

Mikalai Statkevich remains in Belarus. Recently, in an interview with Zeit, he stated that attempts to force him out of the country remain futile.

"When I was released, I didn't even have a passport, and it was needed to get medical help. Later, when I felt better, officials returned my passport to me. In addition, our house is being demolished. We live in a so-called scientists' town in Minsk, which is planned for redevelopment — the process has been going on for a long time, and after my release, it was even accelerated, which is definitely not a coincidence. But all attempts to force me out of Belarus have been futile. I will not leave the country," he said.

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